Each time I get on the dance floor to do a tango vals, I feel grateful that I was a musician for several decades before learning to dance. Timing in music is something I feel and do not have to count. When I started teaching dance, I found it hard to describe how to move to music: couldn't everyone hear what I heard?

The truth is, many people struggle with finding the beat for dancing. I recently fielded a request about how to be more musical with tango. I replied to that person, and then realized that this advice might be useful to more folks.

After teaching dance for 22 years, there are only a few things that I've found work for learning to hear and use the music:

1. Start listening to the music as much as possible; around the home; in
the car; at the office, etc. Even if you are not paying close
attention, your brain hears the music and starts processing it better,
even without moving to it. Eventually, when you move to the music, you
will REALLY move to the music because of these hours of extra
"listening." This is purely aural learning, but it helps.

2. In classes, dances and practicas, watch the people who look
like they are moving nicely with the music . . . and copy them
shamelessly. I'd suggest getting behind a leader who looks like they
are musical, and try to move at the same time. Again, this is a long
process, but in patterning your body to theirs, you are learning to
connect visually with the music.

3. OK, so far, we have aural and visual elements of learning
musicality. For kinesthetic learning, my games about musicality help (see my other musicality posts).
If you are in a class that is about musicality, you experience the
movement with the music, connecting #1 and #2 to this body feeling.
You can also do this in private lessons, and I'd be happy to set some
up with you if you would like that. Another way to experience this is
to have a musical person lead YOU so you can follow to the music and
feel it in your body; we could also do that in a private lesson.

4. Last part of musicality that I do as another kinesthetic approach (and aural): make sounds! That's why I make people play my "silly games"
about musicality while making noise. For some folks, attaching a sound to a movement helps them to remember how to move.

Different people learn different ways. I learn mostly visually and
kinesthetically. I have a student who learns best by saying things
while moving: sounds and noises that he then associates with the
movement. I have some students who need to hear me explain things as
their way to understand. Another students needs to stand and watch others try the movement, and then can do the movement. If you know how you learn best, you can
streamline the process, but this will take some time--much longer than
learning steps, but EVERYONE can learn this.

I disagree with people who say that musicality can be learned with a computer program :-)